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SILENT ERA FILMS ON HOME VIDEO
Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2009 by Carl Bennett.
All Rights Reserved.
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The New York Hat
(1912) |
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 2002 Kino International edition
Griffith Masterworks: Biograph Shorts (1908-1914),
black & white, ? minutes total, not rated,
including The New York Hat (1912), black & white, 16 minutes, not rated,
with The Adventures of Dollie (1908) black & white, 12 minutes, not rated, Corner in Wheat (1909), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated, The Sealed Room (1909), black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, Those Awful Hats (1909), black & white, 3 minutes, not rated, The Unchanging Sea (1910), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, The Usurer (1910), black & white, 18 minutes, not rated, Enoch Arden (1911), black & white, 33 minutes, not rated, His Trust (1911), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated, The Last Drop of Water (1911), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, The Miser’s Heart (1911), black & white, 16 minutes, not rated, The Burglar’s Dilemma (1912), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, Friends (1912), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, The Lesser Evil (1912), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), black & white, 18 minutes, not rated, One is Business, The Other Crime (1912), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, The Painted Lady (1912), black & white, 12 minutes, not rated, The Sunbeam (1912), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, An Unseen Enemy (1912), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, Death’s Marathon (1913), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, The Mothering Heart (1913), black & white, 23 minutes, not rated, The Massacre (1914), black & white, 30 minutes, not rated, and The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1914), black & white, 29 minutes, not rated.
Kino International, K268, UPC 7-38329-02682-0.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, two single-sided, dual-layered DVD discs, Region 1, 4 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops, double keep case, $29.95.
DVD release date: 10 December 2002.
Country of origin: USA
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 2003 Image Entertainment edition
The New York Hat (1912), black & white, 16 minutes, not rated,
with The Wishing Ring (1914), color-toned black & white, 60 minutes, not rated, A Girl’s Folly (1917), color-toned black & white, 30 minutes, not rated, and Before Hollywood There Was Fort Lee, N.J. (1964), color and black & white, 40 minutes, not rated.
Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment,
ID1855DSDVD, 0-14381-18552-2.
Windowboxed 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, dual-layered DVD disc, Region 0, ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 6 chapter stops, keep case, $24.99.
DVD release date: 20 May 2003.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.
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Our first look at this edition of The New York Hat reveals a very-good 35mm source print that is a little flat in grayscale contrast and is little soft in image detail. When compared to the Image edition below, we note that the Kino edition shows more of the frame at the top and right portions of the picture but crops the bottom and left side of the picture. The full-frame transfer also means that some of all edges of the picture will not be seen due to overscan cropping on some monitors.
Our first look at this edition of The New York Hat reveals a very-good 35mm source print has been utilized for the video transfer. The tonal ranges in the source print are broad and image detail is very-good, but the video transfer shows signs of too much edge sharpening. When compared to the Kino edition above, we note that the Image edition shows more of the frame at the left and bottom portions of the picture but crops the top of right side of the picture.
